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The Humphrey Bogart Collection (The Big Sleep/The Maltese Falcon/Casablanca/Key Largo) Posters
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Rating:  -
Great mix of a classic actor with some of the best leading ladies. I like the sets as they give a great value for my library of classic films.
Rating:  -
The low rating is for the sound quality on the DVDs, not the movies (I give 5 stars to those). The dialog is so quite that I can't hear it. It is really bad in Casablanca where I had to change the volumn from 14 in the music seans to 25 for dialog, and still had trouble hearing it.
No one else has mentioned this in a review, so maybe I just got a bad set and should return it for a replacement.
Rating: -
Humphrey Bogart is/was probably the most famous anti-hero in all film history. After a long apprenticeship, when he reached stardom in his forties with "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon" in 1941, he established a sympathetic character who captured the imagination of the public. His persona was loyal and independent, but always conveying great integrity. As a romantic figure, he was reserved and taciturn.
This collection of films contains arguably the very best films from Bogart's Warner Brother's years. Who could quibble with the selection? You may want a few more titles but you can buy them separately anyway. By way of a short summary, the collection contains:
- "The Maltese Falcon", released in 1941, the third and best version of Dashiel Hammett's detective story of greed. John Huston made his debut as director. Many of the shots are filmed from a low angle and this was one of the few films at the time which showed the ceilings of the sets. Combined with the shadowy lighting, the characters loom largely in the frames, particularly Sydney Greenstreet. Bogart plays private detective Sam Spade and the film never ceases to surprise the viewer due to the superb dialogue and the levels of deceit lifted directly from Hammett's pages. The cast include the breathless and deadly Mary Astor and effeminate Peter Lorre.
- "Casablanca" was made in 1943 with Bogart and Ingrid Bergman playing one of THE great love teams in film history. The film has a convoluted plot set around "Rick's Cafe" in the heart of war torn "Casablanca. Once again the film contains many memorable lines and Dooley Wilson sings "As Time Goes By". Claude Rains is outstanding as the chief of police. The DVD contains a worthwhile documentary on the film hosted by Bogart's widow Lauren Bacall.
- For 1944/45, there are 2 versions of "The Big Sleep", with Bogart matched to wife Lauren Bacall in Raymond Chandler's incomprehensible thriller. The first version, released to the troops in 1944, was withheld from the public as Bacall's stardom rose from the release of "To Have and Have Not, her debut. Scenes were reshot and the film was re-edited to provide a greater showcase for her and the slangy, sexy dialogue between her and Bogart which had been such a feature of the earlier film. The DVD contains both versions with a documentary which highlights the differences and why they were made. This gives a particularly interesting insight into the workings of the studio and the director, Howard Hawks, to provide the maximum box office results. Hawks is on record as saying that he was more interested in individual scenes rather than the overall plot and the film reflects this.
- "Key Largo" was released in 1948, a version of the Maxwell Anderson play, not unlike "The Petrified Forest " which made Bogart a star in 1936. The film has a superb ensemble cast with an Oscar winning performance from Clair Trevor as a lush. Bogart plays a variation on his role in "To Have and Have Not". This time he is a return soldier, quiet and rudderless, suiting the post war mood with a new gravity. Edward G Robinson plays Johnny Rocco, an older brother to his braggart Rico from "Little Caesar" and he is as powerful in this role as he was in the earlier film. His gangster now has become a has-been, looking backward to when he was a big shot and vainly attempting to return to his prohibition heights. Bacall is very appealing without makeup and a much better actress than in the earlier films.
All the prints are good although "The Maltese Falcon" is sometimes grainy and there seems to be some jumps in the print which could, in fact, be due to editing of the original. Maybe the censors got involved. The 2 documentaries for "Casablanca" and "The Big Sleep" add to the enjoyment of both films but the written cast lists and histories are cheap and tedious. It is a pity that the "Warner's Night at the Movies" available on other collections were not included.
Any Bogart fan will want all of these films so it is excellent to be able to save some money and buy them together. The Collection is good value.
Rating: -
This was a great addition to my collection of real movies, with real actor... There aren't any special effects as none were needed.. They don't make them like these any more...
Rating: -
Would someone let me know if this collection includes the version of Maltese Falcon with the out-of-sync audio at the end? I've delayed buying any version of Falcon for fear I get that bad DVD version previous reviews mention. If you know which version I can get of this classic, without getting burned, could you please put a comment here?
Thanks!
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